Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor returns for the Doctor Who Christmas Special, his first episode without Ruby, for a sometimes chaotic time-hopping trip through history.

The episode introduces us to Joy (Bridgerton’s Nicolas Coughlan), who checks into a present-day London hotel at Christmastime. She’s nervous and awkward in the cozy, lower-budget room.

We meet The Doctor trying to deliver a cheese toastie and a coffee through various time periods until he lands on Joy in her little hotel room. He has parked the TARDIS in the lobby of the Time Hotel, an establishment where every room leads to a different time period.

When mulling around the lobby with empty-brained employee Trev (a wasted Joel Fry) looking for milk, he notices a customer walk in with a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. He leaves Trev to follow the man who reveals that the briefcase and the mind control it has over the person holding it transfers from person to person.

Doctor Who Christmas special "Joy to the World"

The Doctor’s Angst Over Ruby

In the aftermath of the first rebooted season finale, The Doctor is in his full angsty mode. He is angry with the world and himself for pushing people away. It’s a familiar type of Doctor, only Ncuti knows when to embrace the anger and when to play up to the eccentric charm.

Unlike previous outings, the remnants of his trauma have not been ignored, setting up a second series where he has to process his emotions and how he handles trauma. With Ruby at home with her family, The Doctor is looking for adventure and something to fill his time with.

The Doctor goes off on a mid-episode tangent that can’t be revealed in the name of staying spoiler-free. The writers understand how to use Gatwa and get the best out of him in this timey wimey world. However, it’s clear they haven’t fully grasped who he is as a person, and his personality is not yet fully realized.

An Ode To Joy

The episode dips away from Joy for an extended period of time, but fear not, she returns for the emotional climax. For an episode called ‘Joy’, writer Steven Moffatt has injected this Christmas episode with a lot of tears.

Nicola Coughlan delivers a masterclass performance, one of the best from a guest star in years. She starts the episode like it’s a rom-com, the nervous singleton staying alone in a hotel at Christmas. It soon reveals why she is alone during the holiday season and why Christmas has such a negative connotation for her. The special allows the underrated actress to stretch her muscles with the highs and lows of the episode. It takes a likable star to have such limited screen time yet make the audience care so much about her.

She and The Doctor make the perfect duo as they travel through time, meeting dinosaurs, heading to Blitz-era London, and running through the jungle. The time and space travel does get a little chaotic, overshadowing the briefcase plot. One of The Doctor’s oldest foes returns, but the focus is shifted elsewhere, and they almost get lost in the mix.

A Christmas Episode With Grit

Much like Russell T. Davies’ reboot of the iconic sci-fi series, the episode isn’t afraid to make a political point. While this Christmas episode leans on the family-friendly, saccharine side of Doctor Who, it’s not all fillings-inducing.

There is a stab at how the UK mishandled the Coronavirus pandemic, there is also a lot of poignant commentary about grief after the pandemic and how life was meant to go on. It’s not necessarily the normal fare to be watched by the family after eating Christmas dinner, but it may start an important conversation and bring tears to an eye.

The episode is not 100% sure how to balance all the topics and the characters. On one side, there is this chaotic traveling through magic time portals in a hotel, and on the other, there is a tale of a lonely woman grieving her mother.

The two don’t always work well together, let alone adding in the tangents, where the show goes off to give The Doctor character development. The science fiction elements, including all the time travel and aliens, get pushed aside in favor of exploring emotional arcs and backstories. You can’t help but feel like more fun could have been had with the Time Hotel, which links a futuristic establishment with that mysterious locked surplus door often found in hotel rooms.

The 2024 Doctor Who Christmas special “Joy to the World” will premiere on Disney+ in the US at 9:10am PST / 12:10pm EST on December 25.

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